Raja Sen Full Interview - One of the Directors of "X"

X: Past Is Present, is an upcoming Hindi film which is directed by 11 different filmmakers. The film doesn't restrict itself to one genre or to one creative head but to one character. The story revolves around K's life, played by Rajat Kapoor, a filmmaker with mid-life crisis. He meets a young girl and that reminds him of all his ex-girlfriends. Is the girl real? Does she exist? Is she a figment of his imagination or what?

We spoke with Raja Sen, one of the directors of the film, to find out what X is all about. 

Read the interview here.

Question: How did the idea of X come to your mind and what prompted you to direct the film?

Raja Sen: The X idea came from a very talented filmmaker and critic from Chennai called Sudhish Kamath and he has a habit of involving me in his crazy schemes. A few years ago he made a movie and he made me act in it called ‘Good Night Good Morning’ and he randomly cast me in it. This time he came up with a brilliant idea and the idea was why don’t we all make a film where we bring in different genres to tell the same story, a story which switches genre from scene to scene and character to character but continues to tell the story of one person. It was a very ambitious idea and he came up to us and said that I have picked a few people and I think we should do this. I am not a director, this is my first film but he came up with this idea and it was so staggeringly original that I thought this is something I want to be a part of, this is something that is truly exciting and even though as a critic I have tilt out my fair share of punishment I was willing to say, lets be a part of it, lets go to the other side because it was such an original idea. Ambition and originality are what as critics or as being the lovers of films, we treasure the most. So, when I heard this I thought let’s try this, this should be something cool. This should be something which teaches all of us a lot.

Question: Could you elaborate a bit more on the teachings?

Raja Sen: The problem is that democracy is an absolute mess. You know how broad things can be when everybody is a captain, so 11 of us having an equal say on all creative decisions made things almost impossible because we were arguing about everything like the email chains to discuss poster designs goes up to 400 emails and it is completely manic because each of us is saying different things in our own heads and to bring it up organically was very hard which is why we decided that we will get an editor we all respect. So, we got this legendary editor called Shekhar Prasad and we went to him and said, “Sir, these are our cuts and now you make sense of it and try to give film a unified voice” and that helped us to hand the film over to somebody, in our heads the tug of war would still be on.”

Question: How difficult did it get to deal with these creative differences?

Raja Sen: In every stage, up to last night when we were discussing things about the premiere like I said, 11 people will not agree on anything unanimously. So, while there is debate and that debate has taken a lot out of us and made us sweat, it has brought us to the creative decisions where if I have an idea with which others aren’t convinced about then I have to fight for it and protect it. Either they talk me out of it or they come around it. We all have to fight for our ideas to stay alive or our aesthetics to stay alive, but I think what has remained is the film's voice and not one person.

Watch the trailer here!

Question: The film looks like a combination of different emotions like love, lust, and fear. How aesthetically have the makers of the film dealt with it?

Raja Sen: The way it is different genres, it has different aesthetics. We have very different cinematographers, the film is shot in all kinds of places, somebody has shot it in the daytime in San Fransisco, somebody shot it in Calcutta in the middle of the night. So, the cinematographers have done it differently. One segment shot in Calcutta is very poetic, one section, on the other hand, is hardcore and sexual. So, I think the aesthetics vary because the genre demands different aesthetics. If you are making a very masala almost South Indian thriller kind of genre then the aesthetics can’t be the same as a twisted dark comedy which is happening inside a room. And I think we have shot it differently, in different places with different people and tonality, the change of tonality for me as a person who is engaged with the script for me that change in tonality is the most exciting thing about the film. I hope the audience can relate to it and I willing to go through it. But I feel with the audiences have such a short attention span, I think they will like a format like this which is evolving, things are changing.

Question:  There are 11 directors, 11 actresses, and Rajat Kapoor, what will you say about that?

Raja Sen: We wanted to have one character as a constant. We wanted to have one protagonist, one person who’s story was being told. Now, as the film shaped up and when we all met and starting locking ourselves in hotel rooms together and fighting about the script, Rajat’s character emerged and Rajat’s character became more well-rounded and different things emerged and the women became more important than Rajat. So, that becomes the mechanism with which you tell the story. You know this is a way in which you tell the story about a man and his ex -girlfriends, that’s why the film is called X. So, the ex-girlfriends are shaping him in some way or the other, for better or for worse. And so all of us, except for Sudheesh who made Rajat’s story in the present, except for Sudheesh, all of us were dealing with different versions of Rajat so we were focusing more on our actresses, on our women who are shaping this character. And also besides Rajat, we have Anshuman Jha who was in Love Sex and Dhokha, who plays the young Rajat. So, in three or four of the sections, in my section also he plays the role because my section involves him being around 22-years-old and so Anshuman plays that.

Question: So, how did you decide the final line-up of the actresses?

Raja Sen: Each director was given full creative control over their segment. So, we had our own control for the cast, cinematographers, we decided where to shoot. We were given a very tiny budget so we went out to do it. So, in my part there is Huma Qureshi and cinematographer Ravi K.Chandra, I persuaded all these people to come on board and they liked the script but the only caveat they had was that we had to shoot in one day because I couldn’t afford any more time with them. All sorts of crazy things, we had to do all in one day and it was very interesting in that sense, I wanted to make sure since I was a first time director I wanted to see that I have actors I respect and cinematographers who really gets vision and elevate the film to a different level.

Question: Do the box office numbers bother you in any manner?

Raja Sen: When you make a film you don’t know how good it is. So, I am at the stage where I am waiting for people to see it, people to react and then the film will do on its own. Films get made and then release when they have to and all that. But as producer Manish Mundra keeps telling us this is going to be the Gangs of Wasseypur for relationship movie, it is going to be the cult. So, I don’t know about that but let’s see what happens.

Question: If you have to pick up one director, which director would you like to review X?

Raja Sen: I would like, somebody who I haven't been nice too. I would like a very brutal review. So, I would like Sajid Khan, Rohit Shetty or Madhur Bhandarkar or Kunal Kohli because they used to be critics on TV. So, I don’t know, I have invited Sajid to the premiere tomorrow. I would love a truly brutal review. People have been asking me, what if people abuse your film because you have been mean in the past? But I would like a brutal review, use some brain, use some fun term that I would like to read.

One thing you learn is that criticism is not personal and so I am not expecting anyone to say I am the next Scorcese, I have done something as an experiment and I have learned from it and if people have criticism I would take criticism.

"I Would Like A Very Brutal Review," Says Raja Sen!